Toast

As the one-year anniversary of my period of "transition" (as my beloved mother likes to say) approaches, I have been peering at my experiences through retrospective glasses more now than ever before throughout this year; recounting moments of struggle and frustration, seeking the growth through and within them, and trying to refocus my forward motion with positive thinking. I know, it all sounds metaphysical, "hippie-dippie". It certainly hasn't been that easy. But from moving here and there, working where and when I can at often odd and random tasks, experiencing the diverse lifestyles of "america" both first-hand and as an outsider, and sending my professional life (i.e. teaching skills) down the gauntlet, I think I might just emerge on the other side soon.

Last week my overly extensive potential-barista-gig evaluation seemed just the final push I needed to go ahead and make a plan, if only a short-term one; to decide on something I want and a time frame within which I wish to obtain it. That's more than I can say for the last, well, six months or so. I wasn't embarrassed when I didn't have a resolute answer to the oft-dreaded "what is your dream job?" question. In fact I felt satisfied to answer honestly "I am figuring that out" with pride and integrity.

But perhaps it was the speaking-it-out loud that reverberated the issue in my mind for the last few days....what do I want??

If I can say with truth and commitment that I have "grown as a person" as the psychologists and philosophers like to say, over this past year it is in two pertinent ways.

First, the professional gauntlet resembles the day-to-day duties of an academic substitute teacher, K-12 with a split-second game face turnaround. That is, running the gauntlet in the classroom...being hit from both sides: students on one end haggling and testing limits, and learning on the other-can I execute this work/lesson/material?? I answered with a resounding yes. Apparently, I am a good teacher. No. A great one.

I never knew.

Second, I can persevere. I can be flexible. And most times I can even be patient.